Mount Shasta Trail Association
Inspire • Create • Conserve
As part of the Trail Association’s ongoing effort to keep the Gateway Trails a quality experience, we recently installed nine “your are here” signs throughout the network. So just when you think you are hopelessly lost, one of these signs will come to the rescue!
We also updated the map panel at the trailhead kiosk to now show the Foundation and Pig Farm Trails, and removed a proposed trail segment that wasn’t needed. Enjoy!
The Siskiyou Science Festival and the Mount Shasta Trail Association invite the public on a strenuous and sometimes steep, 5.5 mile round-trip hike to the sky scraping granite spires called Castle Crags on Sunday, May 19th.
The elevation gain is 2,200 feet. Participants will first walk through the forest to Indian Springs and then hike out in the open, amid the granite slabs and pinnacles where the postcard views of Mt Shasta and the Crags become more and more spectacular.
Castle Crags are actually part of the Klamath Mountains, not the Cascade Range, and are much older. They were formed by granite magma slowly cooling underground ( as a “pluton”) and subsequently becoming exposed at the surface through uplifting and erosion.
This is the same way that the granites of Yosemite formed. In fact, the Klamath Mountains broke off from the Sierra Nevada about 60 million years ago. Mt Shasta, in contrast, was formed by relatively recent surface eruptions (within the last several million years) and its rock is andesite (a type of basalt).
Meeting place is 111 Morgan Way in front of The Best Western Tree House in Mt Shasta at 9:00 am. We will carpool to Castle Crags State Park. Bring lunch, water, and sun protection and expect to return about 4:30 pm. For further questions call Joan Roemer 530-926-0647.
On Monday morning at 9 am, there will be a cleanup at the South Weed I-5 exit (Vista Dr.). See the email below.
Hello Clean and Safe Mount Shasta friends, we have been invited to come do a cleanup in Weed by our neighbor and friend Jessica Zern. Scheduled for this coming Monday, May 6th at 9am, let’s go give Jessica and our neighbor city a hand and help cleanup the Weed Truck Stop area near the taco truck parked near the Grocery Outlet. I’ll bring bags and pickers, and you bring a hat, water, and work gloves. I hope to see you Monday! Thanks, Glenn Harvey 530-925-9287 or glennharvey54@gmail.com.
Hope you can come and help for an hour or two.
Hello Mt. Shasta Trail Friends,
Here are a few additional details about the work day this Saturday, April 20th:
Work Plan: Volunteers are welcome to join Mark and me at Lippincott e-camp on Thursday and Friday to prepare for the work day on Saturday. We will thin trees and cut brush, and leave it to be dragged into piles and burned by the Boy Scouts and volunteers on Saturday. There is poison oak in the area. This is moderate to heavy work this year, there are not a lot of light duty jobs.
Help Needed: Please welcome our neighbors and friends, thank them for coming, and PLEASE TAKE PICTURES! We will start with a group picture at breakfast.
Thanks,
Glenn Harvey
530-925-9287
Last Saturday, all the downed trees we could find were removed from the Gateway Trail in preparation for great weather and all the hikers and bikers who’ve been cooped up inside for weeks.
Our partners at BikeShasta are hosting a work day on the Gateway Trail system on Saturday April 27th. Meeting place and time are Shastice Park at 9:00 AM. Please come in appropriate work clothing with sturdy gloves; and bring water, snacks and sun protection. Hand tools will be made available and work assignments and groups will be made. Lunch is being sponsored by The Fifth Season at 1:00 PM at Shastice Park, while a group ride will happen at 2:00 PM.
It Takes A Village
On Saturday, March 30, 2019, about 15 volunteers ascended Spring Hill Trail toting chainsaws, loppers, shovels, McCleods, and Pulaskis. The Rocky Point loop trail was widened in areas where the passage was getting narrow, and similar trimming was done on the main trail. Several of the Americorps fellows did the hard work of grubbing roots out of the trail (stuff us oldsters hate to do).
If you haven’t hiked the Rocky Point loop, you should. The views on the eastern aspect of the trail (go under the tree and over a few large rocks to gaze out over the valley below, facing Mt. Shasta) are spectacular right now. Go about ¾ of the way up Spring Hill Trail and take a right at the post marked as Rocky Point.
Thanks to those who showed up to maintain this highly utilized trail.
Consider attending this important meeting on Thursday concerning the Pacific Crest Trail Town project.
If you missed it, below is an article from the Mount Shasta Herald newspaper by Tim Hold and published on December 5, 2018.
The next time you’re out hiking in our region, maybe around Lake Siskiyou or up on the slopes of Mount Shasta, you might want to say a quiet thank you to John Harch and his crew of “crazy old men.” They’re the ones who give up part of their weekends to clear brush, chainsaw fallen trees, and build water diversions to curb trail erosion. They’re the volunteer crew of the Mount Shasta Trail Association, led by Harch, 62, a retired general surgeon.
He’s a man whose intense energy is leavened by a generous dollop of humor. “He’s got a magnetic personality,” adds trail volunteer Glenn Harvey, who’s 64. “He’s really good at getting people to come out and do all that hard work.”
Harch is also good at getting other organizations to come out and help with the trail work. At the Mount Shasta City Park in the spring of 2017 Harch and his “crazy old men” were joined by 20 volunteers from Wholesale Solar to spread chips on a trail. Harch and his Trail Association volunteers work with a local organization called Clean And Safe Mount Shasta to remove trash from abandoned transient camps and other litter dump sites in the region.
Last spring in Dunsmuir Harch led an effort to fix a portion of the river trail leading to the city park. Erosion had narrowed two portions of a trail carved out of a steep slope above the river, making it potentially dangerous for hikers. Harch’s crew, joined by several Dunsmuir residents, widened the trail at both locations and built rock steps at the steepest part, where it wound past the roots of a large tree.
Longtime trail crew member Mark Telegin, 70, takes pride in the work done that day, in what he calls “a beautiful blending of rock, roots and dirt.”
Volunteers like Telegin take their trail work seriously, spending a lot of time and thought in the placement of rocks for water diversions and steps so they’ll be there for years to come. Telegin himself has taken classes on trail maintenance by the Pacific Crest Trail Association in Ashland. He’s read manuals on the subject and gotten tips from park rangers at Castle Crags State Park, where he recently helped build a bridge over a small creek.
Telegin admits to being something of a trail fix fanatic, someone who can’t take a leisurely hike without at least picking up some litter or clearing some brush. He’s been a volunteer with the Trail Association since he retired as a railroad engineer eight years ago.
For big jobs, like the building of a new, 45-mile addition to the Gateway Trail on the lower slopes of Mount Shasta, the Trail Association uses contractors who come in with heavy equipment to carve out and clear hiking paths. But after that the volunteer crews are there year after year to make sure the trail stays clear, safe, and enjoyable to hike.
Looking to the future, Harch says, “I just want to remind folks that these ‘crazy old guys’ aren’t going to last forever, so if anyone is interested in joining our crew I encourage them to get in touch with me.” His email address is john@harchms.com.